Can we go back to toys? Feb 13th, Entry #104.

Sara: Sunday night at FLOCK we talked about the Catholic Social Teaching, Rights and Responsibilities.  This basically says that if we believe that we are entitled to certain rights, like food, shelter, clothing, then we have a responsibility to make sure that every other human also has the same right to those things.  Solid.  Yay church.

So, to start off the night we did a little activity to help the kiddos see the difference between a right and a luxury.  Everyone deserves basic human rights, not necissarily luxuries.  We had a sign that said "Right" hanging on one wall and another sign that said "Luxury" hanging on the other wall.  Aaron read out something, like "toys", and the kids had to decide if that thing was a right or a luxury by standing on the appropriate side of the room.  Get it?  So, as we were doing this and watching the wheels turn in eveyone's heads as they had to think about it, we also got some pretty clever quotes.

Item #2:  Cars
David: that depends if it's a luxury car.

Item # 5:  Entertainment
Everyone except Brandon stood on the "luxury" side.  (we soon convinced him otherwise)
Brandon" I am the 1%.

Item # 6: Friends
David: the TV show or the people?
Then the debate turned to how people need other people because they can't be friends with themselves.  Erica: unless they are schzio"freind"zic.

Item #10: Work
Brandon: Can we go back to toys?  That was easy.

After FLOCK, Feb 13th, Entry #103.

Sara:  Most people leave right after FLOCK.  But every now and then some people stick around and we tend to have a good time.  It's usually pretty ridiculous and dumb but always fun.  Like the one time we had a dance party and the other time when Aaron did the Rubik's cube in under 90 seconds.  You never know what's going to happen if you stay after FLOCK.

Like Emily, you might need to take a nap after the dance party.  And apparently the cabinet is a good place to take a nap.

Or, maybe after you've helped wash all the cups, you decide to stack them in a pyramid.  And then we see all the different ways we can knock that pyramid over.

There's all sorts of fun things to do.

Wise words. Feb 1st, Entry #102.

Sara:  One of my favorite things in the whole wide world to do is listen to Erica talk.  You honestly never have any idea what might come out of her mouth.  I wish I had a recorder in my pocket all time and when I needed to laugh I would just turn it on.  Really, I'm kind of jealous that I'm not as quick witted as she is.  I, by no means, am making light of her talent.  Truly, she is one of the funniest people I know and she doesn't even mean to be.

I first discovered this 2 summers ago after FLOCK.  It was summer time and when FLOCK was over no one really had to leave because there was no school the next morning.  So, after I clean up, I come back outside and Aaron and the remaining kids are playing a very difficult, intense and involved game.  It's so awesome it doesn't even have a name.  It entails, standing in a circle, throwing a ball to someone, and saying something, anything, if the ball is thrown to you and then you throw it to someone else.  That's the extent of the game, period.  Every time Erica got the ball she said the most random, hilarious things.  The only one I really remember was "I'm thinking of growing a lemon tree in my room."  She was serious.

The point of all of this, I wish I could share the love with all of you of the "wisdom" that comes out of Erica's mouth.  But alas, I only have 4 things for you this time.  If you need more, check out other blog posts...she pops up regularly.

#1
Erica: Are you wearing Suchandsuch perfume?
Caroline: Yes.  You can tell?
Erica: I have the nose of a ninja.

#2  talking about soda
Erica: ....you're at a restaurant and you ask for a coke and then say "is Pepsi ok".  No.  Is Monopoly money ok?

#3 talking to Madie
Erica: You know how they say laughter is the best medicine...you're a pharmacy!

#4  Audi Superbowl commercial
Erica: An Audi....as compared to an innie??  Get it?  haha.

Wiser words were never spoken.

IHOOP. January 29th, Entry #101.

Sara:  Tonight at FLOCK we talked about old people.  Well, to be fair we talked about 6 groups of people that tend to have their dignity threatened in our culture: the unborn, the elderly, the homeless, prisoners, the handicapped and 3rd world citizens.  While I could go into the depth of the topic and talk about human dignity, that is not the purpose of this post....at all.

We spilt all the kiddos into 6 groups and each group was assigned one of the aforementioned groups to answer some questions about.  One of the questions was: Are there institutions or organizations already in place to help this group?

Well, when Erica's group got up to answer their questions about the elderly, specifically the one listed above, it went like this.

Q: Are there institutions or organizations already in place to help this group?
A: The AARP, nursing homes, and IHOP.

Sara:  IHOP?
Erica:  Yeah, have you seen how old people go there?  The last time I went there everyone in there was old.  They should change the name to the "International House of Old People.

Really?  Did you really just say that?  Well, if that's the case, it really ought to be IHOOP, not IHOP.  Get it right.

Friends by Circumstance, Bar-raisers by choice. Jan 26th, Entry #100.

Sara:  Yesterday we celebrated Kyle's birthday by playing Whirrlyball, only the dumbest and greatest game ever invented.  And kind of painful too....I have one heck of a goose egg on my shin.  Anyways, it was awesome and of course we were all there because we love Kyle.

But it's kind of fun to think about how all even ended up there last night to begin.  (This is that part of the movie where the main character sits back, puts their forefinger and thumb on their chin with a pensive look on their face and then squiggly lines are put on the screen to let us know that the person is thinking about the past and then past scenes come up.  You know what I mean?)

I met Chelsea for the first time 8 years ago when we both started working in youth ministry.  We quickly became allies, sounding boards and then friends.  I was thinking a few weeks ago that had Michael had more brothers and I would have needed more bridesmaids, I totally would have asked Chels...she's been a great friend for a long time.

I first met Kyle at our monthly YM meeting when he was introduced to all of us as the new YM at Sacred Heart.  They told us that he was the waiter at Jalapenos and Fr. Craig hired him on the spot.  I was not impressed.  He was wearing holey jeans, had a faux-hawk and looked about 12.  I never thought he would last.  I am soooo glad that I was wrong about everything I thought about it.  See kids, it's wrong to judge.

And Cdub....I really don't remember when I first met him.  Sorry Chris.  But I do know that I liked him from the start and we have collaborated on lots of projects and events from the beginning....and he makes me laugh all the time.  And challenges me in prayer.

I could go on about Mikey, Aaron, and Stacey, but I think you get the point by now.  What is sooooo awesome about all these people is yes, they are a blessing to their parish and to this Archdiocese, but really it's that I am lucky enough to call all of them friends.  We might have become friends by circumstance, but we are definitely friends for real and I could not be more blessed to have such wonderful colleagues AND friends.

The other thing I wanted to point out is that while we have a ton of fun together and work well together on different events...more than anything, they are wonderful friends because they hold me to a higher standard, they raise the bar. 

For example, last night after Whirrlyball, we went to get some dinner together.  When I got back from my honeymoon, I was going through all my emails and I had one that seemed to refer to some incident that had taken place.  So, I'm sitting at dinner next to those 3 and I ask them "what happened to cause those emails?"  I'm not going to lie, I wanted the juicy gossip and details...I wanted to know who said what and what happened.  And you know what they 3 of them did....they told me the story and how the situation was rectified without ANY details.  And while at first I was kind of bummed, I sat back and marveled at their virtue.  They understood that telling ugly stories, even if they were true, is not Christ-like and is not going to fix the problem.  They refrained from gossiping and protected everyone's reputation because it's the right thing to do.  It's really none of my business and they last thing I need is any reason to judge someone.  Wow.  Couldn't we all use more friends that call us to higher standards??

So, thank you all for being my friends and teaching me everyday what it means to live a virtuous life.

And Kyle, guess what?....the 100th entry of this blog is about your birthday.  You're welcome.

Stop doing dumb things. Dec 18th, Entry #99.

Sara:  Last night was the Prayer and Action Extravaganza and it was awesome!!  Any time we can have an excuse to have a little P&A time is good for me!  It was great to see everyone from this summer, especially the staff.  We played some mad Noodleball (which I think ought to be an Olympic sport) and Speedball, had a rousing rendition of the Boogaloo, some great funny stories, lovely music (thank you Caleb), heart-warming GIGs, a great reflection by Fr. Mitchel and some QPT in the church. All, in all, it was a great night and it makes me really excited for this summer.

BUT, that is not really what I want to blog about.  It's all the stuff that happened AFTER the extravaganza that was awesome.  Most of it involved Kyle and Chris (big surprise) and any of us who were lucky enough to still be around.

Instead of trying to explain everything in writing, I think I'll let the pictures and videos do the job for me.

First thing, Aaron and Madeline were sitting in the office and chatting and of course we had to bother them.  So, we drew faces on plates and stood in front of the windows.  We are wonderful artists.

We did this a few times with new faces on new plates, and then Aaron and Madeline had to retaliate.  Which they should.  I would expect nothing less.

And then we had to have ghosts as well.  Not sure why.  But I'll give you 2 guesses as to whose under those sheets.

Now that that was done, we moved on to the next ridiculous thing we could think of involving sheets.  Chris decided it was a cape....and he ran up and down the hall trying to make the cape fly.  It didn't work very well, so he decided to amuse us with window antics.  That definitely did work.  It was very amusing!

After that we stuck with the window theme and moved on to darts.  One of Chris' kiddos gave him 72 nerf darts for Christmas.  They didn't stay in the boxes long and you don't need to have the nerf gun to have fun with them.  Everyone started pelting them at the window trying to make them stick.  They were pretty effective too.

Then Kyle decided to sit in the middle of the window and become the target.  Kyle, even if the circus calls and wants you to be a human target inthe knife throwing show, I think you ought to stick to youth ministry.

Oh, there are always fun times when these 2 are involved.  And when they see me taking embarrassing photos or videos they tell me "hey, don't put this on the blog!" and I say, "then stop doing dumb things".  Hey, it's fair warning.

Let's Hear it for Mary. Dec 12th, Entry #98.

Sara:  I just want to give a shout out to some super awesome high schoolers.  Last Wednesday, as I was getting ready for middle school youth group and the kiddos were showing up, like 5 high school girls come into the room.  I was surprised to seem them because, well, this was middle school youth group.  But, they informed that they had just come from Mass for the Immaculate Conception and just popped into say "hi".  One of them even told me that she found out like 10 minutes before mass that she could go, so she jumped in the car and went.

Most adult Catholics don't even realize that Immaculate Conception is a Holy Day of Obligation and even if they do they don't always make it a priority to make it to church.  But, these fabulous ladies went on their own, some without their families or even with younger siblings in tow and made it a priority to give a shout out to Mary on her special day.  So impressed, just so impressed.  Well done ladies.